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I used to be a magazine editor (trade press) and I can understand the editor's reticence to publish, because the letter is couched as an attack on the magazine,

I used to be a magazine editor (trade press) and I can understand the editor's reticence to publish, because the letter is couched as an attack on the magazine, rather than a letter that framed as setting the record straight about the legacy of EO Wilson. If you are going to write a letter like this don't put this: "Scientific American published a bewilderingly flimsy opinion piece" in sentence 2. Instead write "we strongly disagree with some of the conclusions of your piece". The whole letter reads like a polemic attack on the editorial department of Scientific American. It would have been quite possible to have taken the arguments in this piece and written a firm rebuttal that gave an alternative view and set our the weaknesses in the published op-ed - and I suspect it would have been published in its entirety.

biorach 5y ago
> The whole letter reads like a polemic attack on the editorial department of Scientific American. It really doesn't. The letter addresses the points raised by the author of the original piece. Your comment is bizarre because it is so at odds with the actual contents of the letter.
- havelhovel 5y ago
  I don’t think their claim is bizarre at all. Almost every other sentence insults Scientific American or McLemore. A lesson for others wanting to get a rebuttal published: You can embarrass someone with facts, but you can’t say they "demonstrate a baffling ignorance of one of the most basic concepts."
fenomas 5y ago
> The whole letter reads like a polemic attack on the editorial department of Scientific American. As I understand it, the furore here is over SciAm having published the article - not just that the article exists or that people disagree with it. If the authors of the open letter felt the article was substantive but wrong, I imagine they'd have written the kind of letter you're suggesting.
pdonis 5y ago
> The whole letter reads like a polemic attack on the editorial department of Scientific American. That's because it is. Any magazine that purports to be informing the public about science should never have published the original article. It is in fact an opinion piece, and an ill-informed one at that. I agree that a magazine is unlikely to publish an article that attacks its own editorial policies, but that doesn't make the magazine right.

biorach 5y ago

> The whole letter reads like a polemic attack on the editorial department of Scientific American. It really doesn't. The letter addresses the points raised by the author of the original piece. Your comment is bizarre because it is so at odds with the actual contents of the letter.

havelhovel 5y ago
I don’t think their claim is bizarre at all. Almost every other sentence insults Scientific American or McLemore. A lesson for others wanting to get a rebuttal published: You can embarrass someone with facts, but you can’t say they "demonstrate a baffling ignorance of one of the most basic concepts."

fenomas 5y ago

> The whole letter reads like a polemic attack on the editorial department of Scientific American. As I understand it, the furore here is over SciAm having published the article - not just that the article exists or that people disagree with it. If the authors of the open letter felt the article was substantive but wrong, I imagine they'd have written the kind of letter you're suggesting.

pdonis 5y ago

> The whole letter reads like a polemic attack on the editorial department of Scientific American. That's because it is. Any magazine that purports to be informing the public about science should never have published the original article. It is in fact an opinion piece, and an ill-informed one at that. I agree that a magazine is unlikely to publish an article that attacks its own editorial policies, but that doesn't make the magazine right.